In recent years, in a mobile communication network using cellular telephones, a system for acquiring a present location of a mobile station (hereinafter referred to as location information) has steadily become commercially viable An example of such a system is as follows. On a PHS (Personal Handy Phone System; Registered Trademark) network a base station receives radio waves from a mobile station and is able to determine an approximate present location of a mobile station on the basis of the location of the base station. Another method which has been suggested for acquiring location information of a mobile station is by utilizing a mobile station having a GPS (Global Positioning System) installed. Possible uses of this location information are, for example, services such as showing the location of a mobile station over a map on a display of a personal computer via a network or providing a user by facsimile with the location of a mobile station and information about adjacent areas.
In recent years, mobile devices with a WWW (World Wide Web) browser, which can connect to the Internet, have been commercially available. Using such a mobile device a user can search for information about restaurants and shops in the vicinity of the user, for example, by accessing a search engine on a web. In these cases, it is very convenient to be able to acquire the desired information relating to the present location by providing a retrieval server with location information.
However, because location information is highly confidential it is undesirable to distribute location information on the Internet.